Directed by: Luc Besson Main Cast: Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, Gary Oldman, Danny Aiello
Summary: Mathilda, a twelve-year old New York girl, is living an undesirable life among her half-family. Her father stores drugs for two-faced cop Norman Stansfield. Only her little brother keeps Mathilda from breaking apart.
One day, Stansfield and his team take cruel revenge on her father for stretching the drugs a little, thus killing the whole family. Only Mathilda, who was out shopping, survives by finding shelter in Léon's apartment in the moment of highest need.
Soon, she finds out about the strange neighbour's unusual profession - killing - and desperately seeks his help in taking revenge for her little brother. Léon, who is completely unexperienced in fatherly tasks, and in friendships, does his best to keep Mathilda out of trouble - unsuccessfully.
Now, the conflict between a killer, who slowly discovers his abilities to live, to feel, to love and a corrupt police officer, who does anything in his might to get rid of an eye witness, arises to unmeasurable proportions - all for the sake of a little twelve-year old girl, who has nearly nothing to lose.
Review: I really liked this one. Surprisingly good performances by the entire main cast. I was going to list them individually, but I realized all 4 of the main players just fully embody their roles and turn in stellar performaces.
Besson's direction is near perfect as well. As far as shot framing and scene selection go, I had no problems, but I did feel like the film was a little too fast-paced at times. I'm definetly a fan of a methodically moving, well developed film, and I just felt like at times, Besson was rushing it. Specifically the day right after Natalie Portman comes to live with Jean Reno, and she proposes the whole deal and everything, I just felt like it was inaccurate and not believable.
I was really kind of dissappointed to see the cliched "time passage" montage here. Yeah, I understand, the same type of thing was going on for a long period of time, and the relationship between Reno and Portman was slowly forming, but I felt there had to be a better way to show this then the Rocky-4-type montage set to happy music that we got. I was really enthralled up to that point and then I kind of lost interest for a bit.
The music, also, was a bit of an issue for me. Besson, for some reason, chose to use the same 20 second clip of a melancholy string piece like 10 times over. I dont know whether he thought the viewers wouldnt notice, but it bothered me. Although sometimes, the music worked really well, especially during the scene with Natalie Portman and Gary Oldman in the bathroom.
I thought the strange relationship between Jean Reno and Natalie Portman was developed excellently. Its really well shown how the two feel like lovers sometimes, father and daughter other times, and sometimes just friends.
I had trouble appreciating the humor in this film, and I thought it just didnt fit. Once and a while, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere, there would be an attempt at humor, and most of the time I just felt it came off awkwardly. One notable exception to this is the scene where Natalie Portman impersonates Madonna and Marilyn Monroe, and somewhat accidentally shoves her youthful sexuality in Jean Reno's face. I thought that specific scene worked especially well as both a dramatic and a comedic piece.
This film also did suffer from a weak supporting cast, as several of the minor characters were played by people who acted like they belonged on TV. Although I was really happy to see Mario Todisco as Tony's barber, A.K.A the screaming Clarence "Drop" Johnson from Miller's Crossing. Quite a memorable face.
Overall, a film that I went into with mixed expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. An excellent piece of work.
Direction – 19/20 Acting – 19/20 Story – 13/15 Rewatchability – 14/15 Music – 7/10 Depth – 8/10 Cinematography – 5/5 Supporting Cast – 3/5 TOTAL = 88%
88% = 4/5 Stars
Best Quote: "I don't give a shit about sleeping, Leon. I want love, or death. That's it."
